show me how you do that trick
by hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: Earth and air. Pomona Sprout/Rolanda Hooch. Completed 6/2/2011.
1. Chapter 1: In A Carriage

Stepping off of the Hogwarts Express, Rolanda Hooch blinked in the sudden bright light. She'd surprised herself, being able to sleep on the train. Her nerves, her anxiety, had faded away the moment the train pulled away from the platform, and she had lost herself in deep, dreamless sleep until the whistle had signaled their nearing arrival. She squinted, shaded her eyes with a hand, and peered up at the old castle. She had hated it here, much of the time: the other students had mistrusted her eyes, and women weren't exactly encouraged to beat everyone in any physical activity at the time, so her immediate and permanent mastery of Quidditch and all broom-related activities had opened her to even more scrutiny. When she was in the air, though, it all had faded away and all she felt was free.

A burbling voice interrupted her reverie. "Rolanda Hooch?"

She looked around, snapped out of her memories of Hogwarts, and focused on a short, round little witch walking in her direction. "Yes, that's me."

"Ah," the witch chuckled, "lovely. I'm Pomona, Pomona Sprout. You're starting this year too, I presume?"

Rolanda jerked her head in a brusque nod. "My first year as an instructor, yes. Yourself?"

"Yes, yes," she said with a wide smile. "I'm starting the Herbology program back up, you know, after Professor Beery passed away."

Rolanda suddenly realized that this Sprout had linked arms with her and was guiding them both to the carriages. She carefully took back her arm from Sprout's embrace and replied, "Will you be heading Hufflepuff, then, as well?"

Sprout stepped up into the carriage and offered Rolanda a hand, which she waved off. "I suppose so, yes. That'll be lovely. What about you?"

Rolanda settled into the seat, clutching her small bag tightly against her. "Flying, Quidditch referee, that sort of thing. No Head of House for me." She leaned her head back against the seat, closing her eyes, hoping that whatever strange peace had enveloped her on the train would return. Her stomach fell full of stones, and she kept hearing snatches of teasing she thought she'd forgotten.

Sprout's voice interrupted her, again. "Ooh, flying. Always gives me the willies. I prefer to stay on the ground, myself."

"Well, then. I doubt we'll have much to do with one another at the school." Rolanda had no interest in making a friend, especially not with this annoying, interrupting, giggling witch.

Silence for a moment. "What a pity," Sprout murmured, and Rolanda couldn't tell what the tone was, didn't care, wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else, by herself, flying.


	2. Chapter 2: In An Office

"Your office, Madame Hooch," the Headmaster said, indicating the heavy wooden door before them. "You're in one of the towers, obviously, and you'll rather like the view, I think." With a feather-light touch, Headmaster Dumbledore opened the door. Rolanda Hooch was instantly in love.

The room was airy and open, strangely so for a stone-walled room with a heavy door. The windows took up almost the whole rounded wall, and the small stretch of stone in which the door sat was covered with Quidditch schedules and a broomstick cupboard. The view, as Dumbledore had said, was beautiful. She could see the Quidditch pitch, tall and beautiful and her favorite place in the world; it took up a good solid third of her view, and she felt her face break into an unfamiliar grin. The rest of her view was mostly open grounds, just a hint of the lake on one edge, and a row of squat little buildings in the middle.

"What are those," she asked stiffly, "those buildings there?"

Professor Dumbledore replied, "Those are the greenhouses; they are rather nearer you than the pitch or the lake, but I daresay they're just as beautiful, at least, once you are inside." With a welcoming pat on the shoulder, Dumbledore left her alone in her new home.

Rolanda had few possessions, and the house elves had already arranged her various supplies - goggles, a few books, some old and battered Quidditch gear - with their usual efficiency. The important thing was her broom closet, and she held her breath as she carefully opened it. There, gleaming and winking at her, were her broomsticks, and at the base, a beautiful old chest in which, she knew, the Quidditch balls slept. "Hello, old friends," she said, that rare smile on her face again.

There wasn't time for a flight, not just now, because the welcome feast was about to begin and she had been instructed to appear. Quickly changing into the nicest robes she owned - which were from her military days, unfortunately - Rolanda hurried through the corridors, only getting turned around once on her way to the banquet hall. She slid into the last empty seat at the high table, just in time for the students to begin filing in.

To her left was a tall, skinny slip of a man, missing several fingers on his right hand and stinking of Porlock dung. "You must be Professor, er, Kettleburn, I presume?"

He peered down his nose at her and sniffed. "Aye."

Rolanda waited politely, but he made no move to return the question. She sighed and settled back in her chair, thinking, _Nothing really changes_. A nervous giggle from her left, strangely familiar.

"Looks like we will be seeing a bit of each other, then," Pomona Sprout said with a guarded smile. "Unless you'd rather chat with Silvanus over there, and he's," the short witch paused thoughtfully, "a bit unfriendly."

"Wonderful," Rolanda said, trying her best to fill the word with all her disdain and lack of interest in socializing. Unfortunately for her, Sprout paid no attention and continued to chatter and question and joke with Rolanda throughout the meal. When they were introduced as new staff members, Pomona received a wide round of applause from her House.

Rolanda earned only two enthusiastic responses in a sea of lukewarm clapping. One loud applauder was Pomona Sprout, of course, and the other was a slender, severe-looking woman on the other end of the table. Rolanda nodded her thanks in the stern witch's direction and took her seat again. Sprout was suddenly quieter, a fact Rolanda didn't analyze lest it suddenly reverse itself. Instead, she dug into the plate of food before her, idly daydreaming about taking her first flight over her old field.


	3. Chapter 3: In A Great Hall

"Madame Hooch!" The severe-looking witch called out after the feast ended. She was much younger than Rolanda, probably ten or fifteen years so, and would be a great beauty if she let herself. "I am Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration Professor. Pleased to make your acquaintance." McGonagall extended her hand and, hesitating, Rolanda shook it with her own, callused and tanned from years on a broomstick.

"Rolanda Hooch, Flight and—"

"Yes, yes, I know who you are. I also know about brooms, a bit, and Quidditch." McGonagall peered around, seeming to check for listeners, and leaned close to whisper in Rolanda's ear. "Some of us are slipping out later this evening, after the students are asleep, for a match. Magpies against Puddlemere. Dumbledore loves that bloody awful team, and I want to see the Magpies destroy them. Care to join us?"

"Oh, god, yes."

—-

"Madame Hooch, may I introduce Professor Filius Flitwick? He is our Charms professor and head of the choir, and sadly a Chudley Cannons fan." McGonagall looked positively festive in a black-and-white (for her beloved Magpies) cloak.

Rolanda chuckled. "Oh, you poor man." As she bent to shake hands with the diminutive professor, another figure joined them in the dark, abandoned hall.

"Indeed, it's a bit like being a Puddlemere fan, Filius." Professor Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "You'd be better off with anyone in the league."

"Ah, but where's the fun in that?" Flitwick said with a smile, and the group turned to go.

"A moment, please," Professor Dumbledore said, "Pomona is running a touch behind."

"Pomona Sprout?" Rolanda asked before she could stop herself.

"Yes, yes. She's quite the Puddlemere fan herself."

A snort escaped Rolanda, but luckily Sprout's entrance distracted the other professors and no one heard her rude response. "Sorry I'm late, sir," the round little witch said with a smile, "but one of the Fanged Geraniums nicked me, just a bit, and I had to get dear Poppy to patch it up for me."

"A plant bit you?" Rolanda asked, cursing her own inability to control her tongue.

"Oh, just a bit, it was hungry, you know." Sprout pushed her sleeve up, showing the group the freshly healed wound, which wrapped twice around her tanned arm. "My own fault, I'd assumed that Professor Beery, rest his soul, had ensured that they'd all be fed, at least, but alas, no such thing." She smiled brightly. "Anyway, shall we be off? I've a good feeling about Puddlemere this year, you know, we've a new Keeper who's supposed to be dynamite!"

—-

Of course, Puddlemere lost spectacularly, nearly 200 points behind even before the Snitch. But Sprout and the others still laughed and cheered and applauded as the losing team left the pitch, and Rolanda couldn't keep a smile off her face.

As they were returning to Hogwarts, McGonagall leaned over to whisper back and forth with Flitwick and Sprout, and Dumbledore fell in step beside Rolanda.

"Ah, my poor Puddlemere. One day, Rolanda, you will see." He winked at her, and they chatted amiably about Ireland's chances in the Cup this year. For those few hours, Rolanda Hooch felt perfectly at home, at ease, as if this year would bring her some sort of closure about her terrible time as a student. Even Sprout's giggling laughter at something Flitwick said couldn't dampen the general sense of goodwill spreading throughout Rolanda Hooch.


	4. Chapter 4: On A Lawn

That first Christmas was the best in Rolanda's recent memory, not counting her Christmas parties in the military, when she'd use just a touch of magic to make all the men feel happy and kind, and all the women, too. Not enough to do anything major, not enough to change things, but just enough to cast a warm golden haze of cheer over the festivities. This Christmas, though, Rolanda didn't have to do any such thing. It was as if Hogwarts had changed in her time away, grown warm and living and comforting.

Or maybe it was simply that now, unlike then, she had friends. McGonagall kept inviting her to the professors' clandestine Quidditch trips, and Flitwick had instituted their weekly game of wizarding chess (loser bought everyone a round at the Three Broomsticks), and Sprout. Well. Sprout kept doing tiny little nice things, stupid things really. Like asking Rolanda to teach her to fly.

"You must calm down, Professor Sprout!" Rolanda had to shout to make herself heard over the brisk wind. In retrospect, today hadn't been the best day, but they were both extraordinarily busy with finals coming up, and it had been their only option.

The round little witch's tanned, scarred hands looked so strong in the greenhouse, wrestling with deadly dangerous plants, but their grip on the broomstick made them white-knuckled with terror. "I would love to calm down, Rolanda, believe you me!"

"Just breathe, all right? You'll be fine. Now," Rolanda felt her clear, calm teacher voice kick in, "push off from the ground. Shift your weight back a bit, keep the nose up."

Sprout slowly, slowly sputtered upwards. Rolanda noted to herself that the Comet 260 had been a good choice — a beginner's broom, a family broom, slow and steady. "Rolanda, look! Look!" The round little witch fluttered higher, like a leaf on the wind, and her absurdly proud smile made Rolanda break into a grin.

"Well done, Pomona," she called up, surprising herself with the use of the first name. "See how well you do when you just calm down a bit?" She kicked off, one strong push, and came to hover alongside Sprout, who was turning the old broom in lazy, ragged circles like a child. "Very nice, Pomona," Hooch said softly. "Now it's time to land. It's the same thing, but in reverse. Shift your weight forward and tip the nose do—"

Before she could finish the though, Pomona had leaned too far forward, like beginners always did. Rolanda managed to catch her with a spell just before she careened straight into the ground. She caught the smaller witch up in her arms, calming her fear with a whispered, "You're all right, Pomona, you're fine."

Their walk back — Sprout refused to try again, "At least not today, Rolanda, please" — was leisurely and slow. Rolanda found herself telling the Herbology witch about her own flight lessons, with her otherwise absent father. By the time they reached Sprout's cozy office on the ground floor, the witches were laughing with each other like good friends.


	5. Chapter 5: In A Pub

Then it was Rolanda Hooch's birthday, a fact that very few people knew. When she'd turned fifty who knows how long ago, Rolanda had stopped celebrating birthdays altogether, reasoning that they served only to congratulate people for not getting sick or falling off a broomstick or eating poisonous food in the course of the year. And since she, Rolanda Hooch, was healthy as a horse, an excellent athlete, and a picky eater, she was in no danger from any of those things, and therefore didn't need a congratulations for avoiding them.

Of course, Sprout (Hooch had caught herself calling the little witch Pomona a few times, but on the whole preferred Sprout) ruined all that, just like she ruined every moment when Hooch shut herself away in her tower room or fled the company of others to not cry, never cry, just sit quietly and breathe. Sprout was the hugger, the person who brought flowers and trinkets and stupid old books about outdated Quidditch maneuvers she'd picked up in Hogsmeade because it "reminded me of you, dearheart," and did stupid things like find out Hooch's birthday and connive with the other teachers to throw a surprise party in the Three Broomsticks.

So Hooch smiled patiently, her yellow eyes flashing with barely restrained rage, and plotted revenge. She got a lovely pair of goggles from McGonagall, a just-published book called _Quidditch Through the Ages_ from Flitwick, a handsome set of warm woolen socks from the Headmaster, and from Sprout, a plant. Of course. This plant, though, secreted a shining green ooze that, when rubbed on a scrape or blister or splinter wound, healed it in a matter of moments. The ooze smelled faintly of cherries, and was dead useful. But that didn't stop Rolanda from cornering Sprout and dragging her into the alley to have a word with her.

"Rolanda, dear, what's the matter?"

"You, you—" she snarled, "you always do this, I'm not—It's not fair, Sprout, and I wish you'd stop."

Puzzled. "Stop what?"

"Being," flailed a hand in the air, "sugary and gloppy and invading my life, I have a _life_, Sprout, and I can't just stop it to play with daisies in your damned greenhouses!"

Hurt. "I don't…I assure you, Rolanda, dear, I never intend to be in your way."

"No, I—" instantly sorry. "No, Sprout, it's just that my birthday. And Christmas. And all of it, you're always pushing and pulling and making me do things and I just…" Trailed off.

"Ah." Carefully blank. "Well, if you'd rather I not, I won't. I'll simply mind my own business from now on, Madame Hooch." Turned on a heel, slid out of the bar.

_You've done it now, Hooch_, Rolanda thought to herself in her most authoritative voice. _Ruined the closest thing you had to—To what? What, exactly, did you think Sprout was to you? A friend, no, friends don't do this much. A colleague? Ha! Nothing of the sort. So what, Hooch? Why have you led the poor girl on like this?_ Shaking what absolutely weren't tears out of her catlike eyes, Rolanda Hooch strode out into the night, following in footsteps already filling in with rain.


	6. Chapter 6: In Wales

She didn't catch up to Sprout that night, despite walking for hours in the rain. Went back to Hogwarts, flashed a tight grin at anyone who passed, holed up in her tower room for a few days. Didn't eat, didn't really sleep. Why was she so upset? She'd wanted Sprout to back off, and she'd gotten that: the little witch hadn't even stopped in for a morning cuppa as had been her habit for months. Instead, Hooch sat alone, staring out at nothing — if her gaze occasionally rested on the greenhouses, it was only because they were there in her field of view. If she kept staring, it certainly wasn't in the hopes of seeing a squat little form appear.

And then it was the end of the year, the end of her first year there, and Rolanda Hooch wore her military robes again, sat still and silent beside the ever-disdainful Kettleburn. Didn't look to the side, not once, not until she heard Pomona's laugh, and even then, they only met eyes for a moment, and then a sudden wave of shame filled Rolanda's vision. So she looked away, hard, stared out across the hall. Shook hands with the professors, clapped the graduating Quidditchers on the back, gave a tight grin for a few photographs. And then she went home, to an empty London flat. She made it a week in the big city, no sky above her, nothing to do, before she snapped — threw a handful of coins at the owner, threw her things in a bag, threw herself on the train away. Wales still wasn't right, but it was better than London.

A maiden aunt, Cassandra, had left her a good-sized house not very far from the ferry over to Holyhead — Aunt had been a fan of the Harpies and had never missed a match until she died. Rolanda took her time settling in, redecorating (after a fashion). Aunt had draped everything in velvet and lace, and there were prints of cats everywhere. It took a week or two, in the strange blazing heat, to tear it all out, bare hands pulling and ripping and tearing, repainting, laying new floors. Rolanda relished the work, loved the way her mind went empty from the labor: it was as close as anything to the serenity she felt in the air. She didn't make friends, exactly, with the neighbors, but they were perfectly friendly, always kept to themselves: a wave over the fence, a "good morning" now and then, nothing too invasive.

Rolanda Hooch felt almost happy now, most days. So when Rolanda went into Holyhead for a match, she was in a good mood, the best she'd had all summer. And when she caught a glimpse of a tiny, round witch scuttling around a corner, she didn't even think about it — just ran after her.


	7. Chapter 7: In a Crowd

"Pomona!"

The short witch turned around. Her broad, tan face was wary, as if she hadn't recognized the voice. Of course, it wasn't at all unlikely she hadn't, considering the utter lack of moments in which Rolanda Hooch had called out to her in that joyful, friendly tone. "Ah, hello." Rolanda swept her up in a hug. Another frightening moment, for Rolanda had only hugged Pomona once, ever, just after a near-death experience. "Have you been Imperiused, then?" Pomona asked, only half-joking.

The taller witch's face was open and relaxed, the way it usually was when she was on a broom, and her laugh was throaty and richer than Pomona had ever heard it.

"No, no, I just love it here." She gestured around her, a sweep of her thin ropy arms, and broke into another disconcerting smile. "Isn't it marvelous?"

"I suppose, yes." Pomona glanced at the surrounding bustle of Welsh witches and wizards, all hurrying to cram into the tiny stadium that housed the Harpies. "Are you coming to the match, then?"

"Oh, of course," Rolanda said, "are you? Who are we playing this week, is it the Magpies?"

"No, it's us. Er, it's Puddlemere, I mean."

"Wonderful!" Rolanda linked arms with the short witch and marched her toward the gate. "You'll sit with me, of course, won't you, Pomona?"

"Tell me the truth, Rolanda, have you been Imperiused? What's the question...um...what is your favorite type of jam?" Sprout's voice was muffled slightly by the bustle and roar of the crowd, and she had to shout to be heard.

"I don't care for jam," Rolana crowed, "and I haven't been Imperiused, I just..." She paused, stood like a statue and let the crowd crest and flow around them. Turned to face the shorter witch. "I feel awful about the way I treated you this year. You're lovely, and I wish I'd been nicer. And then I come here and just love it, and now you're here too! And it's marvelous, isn't it? The way things happen?"

Rolanda's yellow cat eyes were wide, pupils dark and open. Her face was a bit tanner than it had been at Hogwarts, and her mouth wasn't pursed and thin like it had always been. She looked, suddenly, like the stunning young witch she'd been when she'd joined the military. Pomona had a sudden vision of her, swooping and zooming around the enemy on a rickety old Silver Arrow, cackling like a stereotype of herself.

Before she could stop herself, Pomona had reached up and touched the side of Rolanda's face, her callused hands soft and gentle. The crowd jostled and pushed around them, and Rolanda's expression didn't change for a moment. Then another wide, wonderful smile broke out on her face, and she cocked her head up, listening. "D'you hear that? It's the announcer! Come on, Pomona, we're missing it!" Pulling the short witch behind her by the hand, Rolanda Hooch slid through the crowd and into the stadium.


	8. Chapter 8: In a House

"Rolanda, this is lovely!" Sprout's voice was scratchy around the edges from her shouting at the match — Puddlemere, of course, had been absolutely destroyed by the Harpies' merciless onslaught. Beneath the roof of the little cottage, Sprout turned in a slow circle, soaking in the clean straight lines of everything, the simple elegance Hooch had wrung and wrought out of her aunt's flouncy, fluffy decor. As she finished the sweep of the room, Pomona stopped, still as statues, facing Rolanda.

The taller witch had been quiet, almost silent, really, since they'd left the match together. Only a short phrase or two, asking Pomona to come see the new place, and then a blanket of silence had fallen. This silence, though, was not stiff or uncomfortable. If anything, it reminded Pomona of the silence of the earth, the silence of the greenhouses: full of life and movement and meaning, if one only listened well. Now Rolanda stood, leaning against a half-painted wall, her eyes wide and watchful.

"Are you hungry?"

Pomona was, in fact, and her stomach roared an answer before she could politely refuse. Rolanda didn't cook, everyone knew that, so Pomona's jaw dropped in shock when Rolanda produced a perfectly serviceable lunch on a tarnished silver tray. "What is this? Sandwiches and tea?" A grin on her round face, Pomona smiled up at the other witch. "Who _are_ you?"

In answer, Rolanda swept forward, stood in front of where Sprout sat, pressed lips to lips, cradled Sprout's cheek in her work-roughened hand. A short kiss, almost chaste, but a kiss nonetheless, and when Rolanda pulled away slightly, cat-like eyes searching Pomona's reddened face, a shining crystalline moment hung in the room.

Pomona opened her mouth, closed it. Opened it again. "I…" Hooch's face was still open, waiting. "Th…er. I didn't know you, ah. Were. Interested?" Her voice quirked up at the end, oh how she hated that, the way she turned things into questions when she was nervous.

"I'm not, usually. Not really. But you." Rolanda's mouth snapped shut, as if she was trying to keep the words in. "You're…It's been a while, for me, for…this. Feeling like this. And you're so bloody_nice_, Pomona, and I am such a crab, and I just—"

Pomona's kiss stopped her words again. This was not another soft, questioning press of lips. Once, during a winter storm a few years ago, Rolanda had blundered into a Muggle power line on her broom; that shock, the paralyzing shake of it, had never quite left her memory: this kiss reminded her or nothing so much as the shiver and stillness she'd endured until a gale of wind knocked her away from the power line. When they broke apart, Rolanda found that she'd tangled one hand in Pomona's short greying hair, and that the seated witch's hands gripped tightly to her hips.

Rolanda panted slightly, her forehead pressed to Pomona's own. "What…what do we do now?"

A sly grin on the shorter witch's face made the taller witch burst into laughter. "That's not what I meant, Pomona!" Another kiss, just as — what was the Muggle thing called again — _electrifying_, and Pomona had pulled Rolanda down onto her wide lap, hands wound about her waist.


	9. Chapter 9: In a Home

Pomona had been staying in some dreadful rent house in Surrey with three other witches, none of whom were kind to her or to each other. So it only made sense that she'd come live with Rolanda, in the small friendly cottage in Wales. And then, when the neighbors decided to move to Argentina, Rolanda made an offer and bought their lot. Tore down the house and built a little gate in the fence, and suddenly Pomona had a huge plot of land to play with while Rolanda fiddled in her broom shed or zoomed around in the sparkling sun.

And it was sort of almost idyllic, really, that whole summer. They'd wake up early, make love, doze again for a while; then Pomona would make her own breakfast while Rolanda took a morning flight. When she came in, Pomona went out — worked in the garden while Rolanda, presumably, ate something (although more often she caught up on Quidditch and the news and drank too much coffee and snuck a cigarette she thought the smaller witch wouldn't notice). And then around lunchtime they'd make love again and eat whatever Pomona could scrounge together, and then they'd sit and read or talk or play cards, and then they'd walk out to the market or to a pub for dinner, and then come home and make love again and go to sleep.

Of course there were not-so-perfect things, too, but not so many that it made a difference, really. Rolanda was moody and snappish, and Pomona nursed hurt feelings and held grudges, and when the smoking was discovered the whole town probably heard the row because Rolanda wasn't going to stop and Pomona hated it. And then Pomona bumped into an old flame in the market, and Rolanda was seethingly jealous and very rude, and they had a near-silent argument about it for a week, but then the makeup sex managed to make them both forget why they'd been angry.

And soon enough, the clean empty house had gotten cluttered: gardening took work, and Sprout was helping edit a friend's book, and Rolanda always forgot to take her mugs into the kitchen to be washed and Pomona never put away her boots. And then Rolanda came home with a big slobbering mutt of a dog she'd ripped away from a man who was beating it, and they named him Arthur and he slept in the kitchen, and they tripped over him every minute of the day, it seemed like. And then Rolanda came home with another dog, a tiny yapping one that both Pomona and Arthur took an instant dislike to, and Rolanda named her Zoe, and before they knew it Hogwarts had sent their start-of-term letters.

"School," Sprout muttered. "I'd almost forgotten about that."

"What will they, er, do with us, you think?" Rolanda was scratching Zoe's belly aimlessly, staring at the Hogwarts letter as if it was fanged and snarling.

"Well, no one's ever said anything about Septima and Aurora." Pomona took a serene sip of her tea.

"What? Vector and Sinistra, really?" Rolanda, for all her protestations, loved a good gossip. "I'd never have guessed, with the way Flitwick's always mooning about around Sinistra. Huh. How do you know?"

Pomona gave a sly look.

"You minx," Rolanda laughed, "tell me. Walk in on them?"

"Not exactly, no. But Septima is such a chatty drunk, you know." The pair laughed together for a few moments. "No, but the school doesn't care. Septima and Aurora have their own quarters together, even, and no one says a word."

"But we have our own quarters already."

"Hmm, and I am rather attached to mine, I'm afraid."

"So. I suppose, then, that we'll have to make do. Needs must, and so on."

Another sly look from the round little witch. "Mmm, yes, there are a few little nooks and crannies in the greenhouses."

The laughter from the little cottage echoed down the lane, and a warm soft night settled around the home.


End file.
